Wednesday found Cain again in Dr. Ava's office.

He sat in his usual chair, slouched back as if trying to claim more space than he needed, but his body gave him away — shoulders tight, fingers tapping a nervous rhythm against the armrest.

The doctor said nothing.

Only the dry scratching of her pen — no, not a pen, something sharper — drifted through the room. A faint rasp, like a claw dragging across glass. She wrote quickly, head tilted, eyes fixed somewhere below him, not quite seeing him at all.

Cain's gaze slid to the little drinking bird on the desk — the toy that dipped its beak again and again into a glass tinted with blue solution. Its motion was hypnotic, calm and maddening all at once.

A minute passed. Or two. Maybe three.

Neither of them spoke. The silence grew so deep it began to hum.

The clock ticked. Cain's heartbeat tried to match the rhythm — and failed.

Everything in the room had begun to feel wrong, like the world had been tuned a half step off from reality. Even the cheerful portrait of a farmer on the wall now seemed off-kilter — the eyes too aware, too full of judgment.

"Cain… are you all right?" Ava asked at last, still not looking up. Her voice was quiet, perfectly even, too even. The kind of voice that reads instructions, not feelings.

"I'm fine," he said with a forced half-smile. "It's just— you've been writing for, what, five minutes straight?" He gestured toward her notebook. "Maybe you could take a break?"

Ava finally lifted her eyes. Her pupils were dull, gray, empty of reflection.

"Why do you think I was writing?"

He blinked. "I just saw you. You were—" he made the motion of her hand, "scratching away like always—"

"I wasn't," she said evenly.

"What?" His voice cracked. "I saw you."

She tilted her head, studying him like a scientist watching an insect try to escape a jar.

"Doc, what the hell's going on? You feeling okay?"

"Cain," she said, so flat it didn't sound like speech at all. "Do you follow my instructions?"

He frowned.

"What?"

"My instructions. All of them. Sequentially. Without… resistance."

Something in him twitched — a primitive flinch, some animal part of the brain recognizing danger in the cadence. Her tone was wrong. It wasn't human speech anymore.

"Hey, I'm trying, all right?" he muttered. "Sometimes it's just— it doesn't work out, but I—"

"Doesn't work out," she repeated. Her voice warped, caught like a broken record. "Doesn't work out. Doesn't work out."

Cain's hand dropped from the armrest. He looked around the office, suddenly aware that the air had thickened — as if the walls were closing in, as if someone had filled the space with invisible smoke.

"You know what?" he said, his voice shaking. "I think I'm done for today."

He stood. The chair scraped the floor with a shriek that made his skin crawl.

"Session's over," he muttered, heading for the door.

The handle turned halfway — then jammed.

He tried again. It twitched faintly in his grip but held firm.

"Come on…" he hissed, wrenching harder. "Stupid damn thing—"

Behind him came the whisper of fabric.

"You can't leave," Ava said.

He froze. Didn't turn. Couldn't. A cold ripple traced his spine like a fingernail.

Slowly, he turned around.

Dr. Ava wasn't there anymore. Or maybe she was — something wearing her shape, wearing it badly.

It stood crooked, puppet-like, as if the strings had been cut. One eye was gone. The lower jaw hung loose, half her face drooping into a gray, sagging melt of flesh. The skin pulsed as if it were breathing.

"Doc…" Cain croaked, backing up until he felt the unyielding door against his back.

"Cain," she whispered, blood bubbling in her throat. "You killed, didn't you?"

The words pierced through him. His stomach dropped, his muscles clenched, trembling as if a storm had entered his body.

"Shut up…" he whispered.

"She's alive… inside me," Ava said, and there was something moving beneath her skin when she spoke — something trying to surface.

"Shut up!" he screamed.

He seized the handle again, pulling so hard his shoulders popped, tendons straining. The door didn't budge.

And then the room breathed — slow, deliberate, like a living thing waking up around him.

"Cain, turn around."

The voice behind him was a ragged whisper, wet and torn, as though it came through a slit throat. Pain trembled in it, but beneath the pain—a deeper note, raw rage. Each word seemed to claw its way out of flesh.

Cain froze. His lips moved soundlessly before words found him.

"No… no, you can't… You're not back. You can't be back…"

"Turn around!" The voice came closer now, filling the room, brushing the air beside his ear.

"I forgive you, Cain… turn to me."

He felt it then—the breath behind his neck, thick and hot, wrong in every sense of the word. It reeked of decay, of soil and rot and something too alive. Cain shook his head violently, eyes screwed shut.

"No, no, no, you're not real. You're dead! I saw— I saw it—I did it myself—"

The voice dropped, animal-deep now, almost a growl:

"Look at me, pup. Or will you hide again? Like your whore of a mother hid behind her prayers?"

Cain cried out suddenly, voice cracking open.

"Mom! Mama, please! Help me!"

Silence.

The kind that doesn't mean quiet but absence.

Only the clock ticking somewhere—

inside his body, maybe.

Then came another voice. A woman's. Soft. Commanding. Familiar in a way that made the air tremble.

"I drove him away. It's over now, my boy. Open your eyes."

He pressed his lids tighter, his breath broken and uneven.

"No… I don't want to see. The world's gone… it's all gone. Everything's lies…"

"I said open them."

Her voice wasn't cruel. It was final.

That was how fate would sound inside the head of a madman.

Cain obeyed.

And the world he saw had no right to exist.

The walls of the office had melted into something living. They flexed gently, flesh-like, throbbing in rhythm with his pulse. From the ceiling hung long tendons, slick and glistening, dripping a dark, opaque fluid that smelled of iron and warmth.

The air was thick with rust and the sweet tang of blood.

Dr. Ava stood before him—but changed. Or perhaps purified of anything human. Her eyes glowed with a pale, inner light; her skin had the cold translucence of candle wax. Her smile was terrible: kind and merciless all at once.

Cain collapsed to his knees. His legs refused their duty; his mouth trembled.

"Mom…" he whispered, not even sure what name belonged to her now. "I'm sorry… I didn't mean to… I was scared…"

She came closer, ran her fingers through his hair. The gesture was so tender it made his vision blur with tears.

"I know, my sweet one. I know everything. It was her, wasn't it? The red-haired witch. The one who told you salvation required a single betrayal?"

He nodded frantically.

"Yes—yes, she made me do it. She said there was no other way. I didn't want to, Mama, I swear—"

Her hand kept stroking him, but the warmth was fading. Then it tightened. Fingers slipped into his hair, gripping, pulling his head up until he had no choice but to look at her.

Ava's face rippled, as though the features were painted on soft clay and the rain had come. The smile stretched, splitting too wide, until it reached her ears. Her eyes lengthened, thinning, and the pupils constricted into vertical slits.

"You shamed me," she hissed. "Rotting through. Do you think words will wash that stain away?"

"Mama, please… I can fix it… I'll fix everything—" His voice broke, the dry rasp of a man who had already screamed too much.

"You will," she said, and her tone turned almost loving again. "You'll fix it, my son. You'll wash the sin away in blood. Bring me his heart—the one who dares forget his promises."

She let go. Cain fell forward, face-first into the trembling floor. It was warm beneath him—alive—and it pulsed against his skin like a buried creature struggling to rise.

Whispers slithered through the air, from the floor, from the walls, maybe from inside his own chest.

Rip… the heart… sinner's heart… offer it to her gift…

Cain shook uncontrollably.

"I swear, Mama… I'll do what you ask. Just don't leave me. Not ever. Don't go."

She laid a hand on his head. Claws—long, thin, black as iron filings—had grown from her fingers. They grazed his scalp, scoring shallow red lines that trickled down his neck.

"Good boy," she murmured. "But remember—every lie, every hesitation…"

Her grin widened again, bright and feral.

"…adds another heart I'll take in place of yours."

Then, softly, almost sweetly:

"Now go.

Find him."

******

Cain jolted upright, a hoarse cry still caught in his throat. Sweat drenched his face, crawled down his back in cold, crawling rivulets. The air felt thick, used, the kind that clings to your lungs. Everything was too close, too damp, as if the dream hadn't quite let him go.

His heart hammered — staccato bursts like Morse code against his ribs.

He looked around.

Just a room. The same room.

The blinds were crooked, the light leaking through a dirty gray filter. A crumpled sheet of paper lay on the floor. Under the desk — an empty vodka bottle. The old television on the wall blinked to life, its screen a cold blue pulse. The static hissed, and across the bottom of the image crept a strip of news text:

"City police report the disappearance of two children — a boy, age twelve, and a girl, age eight…"

Cain froze.

His breath hitched, coming out in thin, sharp bursts. The voice of the newsreader sounded distant, as though it came from somewhere behind glass, warped and hollow. But the words sank in all the same.

He dragged a shaky hand over his face. His palm came away damp.

"…just a dream," he whispered. "Just a goddamn nightmare…"

But something inside him stirred — something old, soft, familiar. Like the echo of a note played once in the dark. Flash fragments stuttered behind his eyes: a woman's voice, eyes like a serpent's slit, whispers through the floorboards.

Bring me the sinner's heart…

He leaned back, pressed his hands over his face. His chest felt tight, like a fist was slowly closing around it. He couldn't tell anymore what was worse — that he might still be dreaming, or that real life had started to rhyme with the dream.

The television crackled again. The reporter went on, oblivious to his unraveling:

"Police believe the disappearances may be connected to a series of ritualistic crimes—"

Cain looked up.

The photo on the screen showed two children — a girl with red hair, her smile caught halfway between fear and pleading; a boy, solemn, his eyes heavy with something too old.

Cain's heart twisted, an unbearable pressure blooming beneath his sternum.

And then — a whisper. Quiet, gentle. A woman's voice. Her voice.

"They sinned, Cain. Each in their own way. They trespassed the boundaries of the world. And you — you are my hand in the dark. Fulfill what you promised."

Cain looked down. His hands were trembling, speckled with scratches. The nails — red-black underneath. He couldn't remember. Not when. Not how.

His lips moved without thought.

"See, Mother… here they are. The hearts of the sinners, just as you asked."

He said it softly, tender even, the way a child confides some good deed.

And somewhere beneath the tenderness lurked that impossible calm — the sweet numb bloom of relief.

The TV flickered again.

Through the static, a sound rippled out — light, lilting. A woman's laughter. Familiar. Warm. Home.

Cain smiled faintly, eyes unblinking at the blue light.

The dream, he realized, wasn't over.

It never would be.

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